Into the Abyss
by amaranthined
Summary: During a trip to the museum gone wrong, a girl named Noe is thrown into Guertena's museum and must face the horrors that await her. After all, Ib and Garry could not the only ones that fell into the twisted world of Guertena. /OC-centric, no canons.


**A/N:** There are no canon characters in this, so no Ib, Garry, or Mary. It's just the adventure of another average girl thrown into the world of Guertena. Just a heads up.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Ib and co., but I do own Noe.

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A dark-haired girl and her family are grouped in the lobby of the Guertena museum, her mother going on about things such as, "It's an educational experience! It will broaden your horizons! Guertena was such a troubled artist, don't you think?"

The girl puts on her headphones and turns on her music to block out her mother. Her older brother only looks at her in sympathy and possibly amusement, though does nothing to stop her mother from talking.

"Noe, don't be rude and take those off!" her mother scolds when she sees the girl's headphones. "One of these days you're going to go deaf."

"It's not like my music is too loud or I'm disturbing anyone," Noe mutters, ignoring her mother's demands and rolling her eyes._ Shut. Up._

Noe can't care less about "broadening your horizons" or manners at the moment, though she is rather excited about the exhibit. She had read a bit about Guertena and he seemed like a very interesting artist and person. She just doesn't want to be dragged along by her parents, who seem to think they know everything that's right for her.

/

She excuses herself from her family, claiming that the experience will be better if she goes off alone. Her parents comply — her mother seems elated that she's taking an interest in sophisticated art, as her mother puts it.

She walks through the museum, her headphones still on, blocking out the chatter of the other visitors and patrons. There are various statues, sculptures, and paintings – all that seem to have a hidden meaning. One particular sculpture that catches her eye is one of a large, thorned red rose. She spends quite a bit of time looking at it before moving on to a few other paintings.

There is a large painting spanning a wall that a few people seem to be crowding around. She approaches and looks up at it, the colors dizzying, then glances down at the plaque at the base of the frame. "Fabricated World...? I guess it's a fitting title."

She's engrossed in the painting when suddenly, the lights flicker. She turns away from the vast landscape, looking around curiously, only to see, a moment later, the lights go out.

She's engulfed in darkness.

She slips off her headphones in confusion, expecting to hear the screams and overall chaos of the visitors instead of her music that was blasting through her headphones earlier.

Instead, she's greeted with shocking, unnerving silence.

"...Hello?" she calls out apprehensively, her voice shaky. "Mom? Dad? Anyone?"

There is no reply. Not a whisper, not a footstep, just...silence. Everyone seems to have vanished.

_Don't freak out, don't freak out, DON'T FREAK OUT_, she repeats over and over in her head until she almost believes it, but deep down, she knows she's panicking.

She pulls out her phone, hoping that she'll be able to call her parents – maybe she'll find out where they are, what happened, what's going on. The screen flickers to life, the brightness illuminating the darkness. She smiles slightly, only for her hopes to be dashed when the screen turns off and the brightness fades abruptly, surrounding her in (somehow visible) darkness once again.

Well, there goes that plan.

She pockets the phone in fear and frustration, and then begins to walk through the empty gallery, her footsteps echoing on the cold, smooth floor.

She's utterly alone, she realizes, finally.

/

She somehow winds back up at the large painting from before, finding blue paint dripping out of it. She turns to see letters spelled out in blue paint across the floor.

COME NOE

A chill runs down her spine. How did they know her name?

She shakes off the feeling of foreboding and decides to follow the eerie letters, curiosity getting the better of her. It's not like she has any other way to go, anyway; the doors to the museum are locked shut. She walks through the gallery, following the letters on the walls and the floor, passing by paintings and statues and sculptures that seem much more threatening in this silent darkness she's trapped in. Shadows flit across the windows, though there is no light filtering from outside.

She's never experienced anything scarier (and freakier) than this in her fifteen years of life.

A big, blue space, much like a lake, in the middle of a room catches her attention. Aptly named Abyss of the Deep, it contains an angler fish. If the aquatic creature is real or not, Noe can't tell, but she sincerely hopes that it's another painting.

There is a thick, gold rope around the blue space, though a part of the rope has been opened up, footprints on the floor just below it. She walks closer and closer until she's almost teetering on the edge of the deep blue, her boots on top of the footprints.

One more step, and she falls.

She stares down at the abyss below her, seeing nothing but that deep, dark blue. The blue shifts, much like water. Is it water? She debates this, as well as whether she should jump in or not, but as she inspects the blue below, she slowly leans forward until she loses balance.

She yelps, her arms flailing as she grasps for something to keep her from toppling into the abyss below, but she doesn't catch the gold rope in time.

_splash!_

She's falling, down, down, down.

_/_

Noe tries to scream as she falls, but no sound comes out, bubbles escaping her lips. She's sure she's drowning, drowning in this darkness with her eyes wide open but seeing nothing but black, her body unable to swim to the surface. _What a way to die_, she thinks wryly, _educational experience, yeah, like drowning is going to teach me anything_.

Just as she thinks she's about to really die (she's too young for her life to end, dammit), she stops falling. She finds herself curled up on a cold, hard floor, completely dry, even though she should be soaking wet. She doesn't really question it, though — dry clothes are much better than wet ones, no matter what the circumstances.

She sits up and looks around wearily, her violet eyes scanning the room around her. It's a deep, moss green, and a hallway to the right seems to be a lighter shade of the same color, the doors scattered also varying shades of green. She can't possibly be in the museum anymore, unless the abyss she just fell through was some sort of portal to another floor. Either that, or this is some sort of hallucination, induced by falling and hitting her head.

Once again, she's surrounded by silence until she remarks to no one in particular (_You're_ _all alone, Noe!_ she reminds herself), "Might as well explore...It won't be any use sitting here." Her voice sounds nervous and too loud.

She gets up from the floor, deciding to go to the nearest door. Doors mean exits, and exits mean getting out. She wants to get out.

She walks briskly down the hallway, the paintings lining the wall seeming more ominous than in the actual museum, as if they're ready to jump out. She attempts to quell her fear as she looks straight ahead, avoiding having to glance at the creepy paintings. She finally makes it to the end of the hallway, where she finds not only the door, but a small, wooden table. On top of the table is a clear, crystal vase with an indigo rose. A sweet scent emanates from the flower, subtle but pleasant, the one nice thing she's encountered so far.

Something propels her to take it, and she does, picking it up by the stem.

"Ow! Stupid thorns."

She moves her fingers so they're placed on the parts of the stem that don't have thorns. She inspects the rose more closely, noticing sparkling water droplets on the stem and the vibrancy of the petals, which are the color of the sky at twilight. There seem to be exactly six petals on the rose, no more, no less.

She tugs on one of them absentmindedly, but drops her hand when she feels a brief, stabbing pain in her chest that disappears as quickly as it came; the petal droops, barely hanging on the stem. She stares at the rose as if it would answer her unspoken query — where did the pain come from?

_tick tock, tick tock, time's up when the rose rots._

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**A/N:** Thank you so much for reading! Comments and whatnot would be much appreciated, so if you could, please click the little review button and leave a thought.


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